The present invention relates generally to children's toys, and more specifically to interactive motorized toy vehicles.
Toys for children, particularly very young children, cover a great range of options, systems, processes, and implementations. There are many indicia by which toys for children are measured and gauged but it is not generally the case that a single toy is represented as being a single universal toy that satisfies all needs for all children for all times and activities.
There are broad classes of toys, one popular toy class includes small-scale hand-held vehicles, both fanciful and reproductions of real vehicles. Common indicia by which toy vehicles are evaluated include a degree of engagement suggested by levels of interactivity and feedback, as well as ruggedness and opportunities to teach various cognitive and motor skills.
Children, particularly young boys, enjoy small scale, electronic vehicle-themed toys that make sounds, flash lights and race across the floor in some fashion. Young children also enjoy toys that engage them physically, and provide them with a feedback loop based on their physical input. Caregivers of these children also appreciate these kinds of physically engaging toys for their children, as they give a child an outlet for burning off energy that might otherwise be directed toward less beneficial pre-adolescent endeavors. However, more typically, electronic vehicle toys require minimal physical interactivity to operate. For example, the most prevalent input means for activating most electronic toys is a simple push button interface. For a younger child, this simple button interface is relatively easy to master and may become uninteresting as it becomes unchallenging. Children, even young children, are often also capable of basic gross motor coordination activities like jumping, running, spinning, and shaking. Given a choice between pushing buttons and more immersive (and exhaustive) physical activity, most children would choose the latter (as would their caregivers).
Racing vehicles with sounds and lights and motors are well known. There are vehicles that flash lights, make vehicle sounds and roll across the floor. These input means range from having child simply push buttons, touch a sensor, or even yell into a microphone, to activate the lights or sounds or motor. There are also plenty of examples of electronic non-vehicle toys that use motion based input techniques as an alternative to the ubiquitous push button inputs as a means to trigger sounds or lights. These types of motion-triggered toys include: electronic balls, ride-on toys, flying toys, pull along toys and electronic games.
There are ride-on toys that provide sound effects in direct relationship to the amount of input of the rider (sound effect determined on how “big” a rock the child does). Additionally, there are toys that establish an amount of time a toy operates dependent on an amount of time a button is pushed as an input means.
There are a number of drawbacks to current small-scale electronic vehicles options for children. These vehicles require relatively little physical engagement of the child with the toy in order to get the desired output. Most typically, a child merely pushes a button, or a series of buttons to hear sounds, or see lights or make the car drive off. Even in toys that provide progressive sounds and lights with each push of a button, there is little satisfaction in this type of repetitive activity. Further, current offerings don't offer a relationship between the amount of input activity generated and the output event.
There is a need for an improved small-scale vehicle toy that produces feedback (e.g., sounds or lights and a motorized output event) directly related to the amount of a child's input. For example, a toy that provides a sequence of sound effects in a handheld toy that progresses dependent on how many times the toy is shaken in given cycle or a toy that determines a speed at which the toy runs in a time interval dependent on how many times the toy is shaken in a given cycle.
There are also currently “battery-less” flashlights that “power up” by virtue of physical input by shaking them vigorously in order to power them for a period of time (using a Faraday effect). However, this technique is limited in its application to toys because of the high amount of shaking required of a child in order to get a very limited output (e.g., a single LED light).
The improved vehicle toy utilizes a physical shaking input like these Faraday style flashlights but instead uses an embedded power source and a microprocessor to translate the shaking inputs into a potentially a wide range of electronic outputs. Further, this improved technique provides sounds and lights during the input stage of “power up” that enhance the experience and provide a feedback loop to the child.
New combinations and arrangements of toy features are often developed and advance the quality of the toys and the abilities of such toys to contribute to education and amusement of children.
It is desirable to provide an apparatus, method, and computer program product for an interactive toy vehicle that provides new structures and combinations of features for enhancing education and amusement, particularly for an improved small-scale vehicle toy that produces feedback (e.g., sounds or lights and a motorized output event) directly related to the amount of a child's input.